The government has approved a proposal to increase the ownership registration fee for cars by 5 percentage points.

Effective in September, the maximum registration fee for passenger cars with fewer than 10 seats will increase from 15 percent (depending on locality) to 20 percent of the vehicle’s value, while the fee for larger vehicles will remain at the current 2 percent.

Registration fees for motorbikes will also increase in urban areas from 2 percent to 5 percent of value.

The increase in registration fees was intended to slow the rapidly increasing numbers of private automobiles on the nation’s roads, which grew by 12 percent, or 183,000 vehicles, in 2010, according to the Ministry of Finance. About 1.7 millions cars were operating on the nation’s roads at the end of that year.

The ministry collected an average of seven trillion dong (US$343 million) annually in registration fees during 2006-10.